Due To Less Pollution, X Is Now Visible — London cityscape with photoshopped snow-capped mountain range above the horizon

Due To Less Pollution, X Is Now Visible

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Published November 2, 2026

In early April 2020, as coronavirus lockdowns cut global air pollution, a photo of the Himalayas visible from India racked up over 100,000 Reddit upvotes and kicked off a wave of absurd photoshops. Within days, Indian Twitter users were pasting the Burj Khalifa, Star Wars planets and the entire solar system into clear skies as fake proof of the lockdown's visual upgrades.

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Overview

Due To Less Pollution, X Is Now Visible, also known as Because Of The Lockdown, X Can Now Be Seen, is a photoshop format that turns a real 2020 news story into visual nonsense1. Posters took the premise that quarantine had cleared the air and ran it past the point of plausibility, swapping in objects no amount of clean air could reveal.

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A typical entry stacks something impossible into the sky above a known skyline or landscape. The Burj Khalifa floats over Mumbai's Marine Drive, Naboo hangs over a highway, Earth itself appears on the horizon of another country2. The caption always keeps the same deadpan news-headline voice, framing the obvious photoshop as if a reporter wrote it.

The joke works because the underlying coverage was real. Media outlets in late March 2020 did report sharp drops in air pollution during lockdowns, and the Himalayas really did become visible from parts of northern India after decades of smog3. That genuine astonishment gave posters cover to stretch the premise into solar systems, fictional planets and other absurdities4.

Origin & Background

Platform
Reddit (real photo) / Twitter (viral photoshop spread)
Date
2020

In late March 2020, outlets began publishing stories about air pollution falling sharply during coronavirus lockdowns, and social media users started sharing landscape photos that had been hidden behind smog for years3. One such photo of the Himalayas viewed from India was posted to r/interestingasfuck, where it was upvoted over 100,000 times on April 4th, 20201.

The photoshopped versions arrived within a day. On April 5th, 2020, Twitter user Crazy Memer posted an edit placing Dubai's Burj Khalifa behind Mumbai's Marine Drive, captioned as if lockdown air had made the Dubai tower visible from India2. The same day, Twitter user Abhijit Iyer-Mitra (@Iyervval) uploaded a thread of similar fakes under the tag Indian pollution humour in the times of covid5. From that cluster of Indian Twitter accounts, the format spread fast.

How It Spread

The format caught on across Indian Twitter on April 5th, 2020, with Crazy Memer's Burj Khalifa edit drawing 240 likes and 38 retweets2. @Iyervval's compilation that same day pulled 232 comments and 37 retweets as the hashtag combination of pollution and covid trended among Indian users5.

Reddit picked up the format the next day. On April 6th, 2020, Redditor UltraGaborel posted a version to r/memes showing the full solar system edited into the sky, which was upvoted over 47,000 times6. Also on April 6th, Redditor BitCoinGrinding posted a Star Wars crossover to r/PrequelMemes showing the fictional planet Naboo rising over a horizon, earning over 47,000 upvotes and 137 comments7.

One day earlier, on April 5th, 2020, Redditor crimson_dog had already posted a widely copied version to r/memes showing Earth itself hanging in the sky above a country4. That post was upvoted nearly 60,000 times and was then re-edited by other users to swap in different countries, which locked the format in as a template rather than a one-off joke1.

Timeline

2020-03

Major media outlets report drops in air pollution during coronavirus lockdowns, and users begin sharing real photos of landscapes newly visible through cleaner air.

2020-04-04

A Reddit post to r/interestingasfuck showing the Himalayas visible from India is upvoted over 100,000 times, seeding the format.

2020-04-05

Twitter user Crazy Memer posts a photoshop of the Burj Khalifa behind Mumbai's Marine Drive, kicking off the Indian Twitter wave.

2020-04-05

Abhijit Iyer-Mitra (@Iyervval) posts a thread of similar fakes under the Indian pollution humour tag.

2020-04-05

Redditor crimson_dog posts an r/memes version with Earth in the sky, which other users then re-edit for different countries.

2020-04-06

UltraGaborel posts a solar system version to r/memes and BitCoinGrinding posts a Naboo version to r/PrequelMemes, both over 47,000 upvotes.

How to Use This Meme

The template is a straight photoshop plus a mock-news caption. Posters typically pick a real skyline or street photo, drop in something comically impossible to see, like a planet, a fictional building or a distant landmark, and caption it with the phrase 'Due to less pollution, [X] is now visible' or a close variant. The humor rides on the deadpan tone: the more matter-of-fact the caption, the better the joke lands.

Frequently Asked Questions